don't tell me you're fine as you crumble before my eyes
by aqaws321
Summary: Jack brings home a lost teenager that happens to also have experience in being a covert operative. Things don't go as smoothly as he would like. Part 2 of my Life, interrupted series. Posted to AO3 under same author name.


**Warnings for: implied/referenced child abuse/violence towards a child (physical, not sexual). Beginnings of a panic attack, people not viewing themselves as something other than a tool. Basically, this fic is kind of based off of the Winter Soldier, so a lot of MacGyver's views of himself will reflect Bucky's views of himself.**

 **Posted to AO3 under the same author name. Part 3 of my Life, interrupted series, and takes place directly after part 1.**

 **I will be absent for the month of November barring unforeseen circumstances, but will be back after that.**

 **Reviews are much appreciated.**

* * *

Jack looked at the ceiling and sighed. It was-he checked the clock sitting on his bedside table-four am. It was four am and he had been lying in bed for an hour after giving a teenager that looked like he had been through a washing machine permission to use his guest bedroom. Jack sighed again, louder and heavier, because he could. His thoughts turned to the scene that had taken place earlier when Jack had begun to get his unexpected house guest settled in for the night. The man had assumed that the kid would know that Jack was obviously going to give him a bed-or the couch, at least-when Jack brought him back to his house, as any good host would.

 _So much for that,_ Jack thought wryly.

MacGyver had stood in the doorway of the guest bedroom for no less than three minutes while Jack got out extra blankets from the linen closet. When Jack had turned and asked if the kid needed anything else, MacGyver had flushed awkwardly and asked where Jack wanted him to sleep. Then, when Jack had stared at him for nine seconds without saying anything, MacGyver flushed even deeper-a feat Jack hadn't thought possible-and stammered out that he knew he would be sleeping on the floor, of course, he just wanted to know where.

Jack had done his best to shut down that train of thought as quickly as possible, informing MacGyver in vehement tones that the bed Jack had just made up was for the kid, not for Jack, as the teen seemed to have been under the impression.

Jack turned restlessly in his bed as he remembered the way MacGyver had blinked in surprise and shock as he processed that he would be given a bed. What had happened to him with Penumbra?

After tossing and turning for another half hour, Jack fell into a fitful doze.

* * *

After about six hours of sleep, Jack woke up. He felt refreshed, relaxed, and ready for breakfast. He glanced at the clock, lazily blinking at the numbers, before the time registered. He felt a faint stirring of surprise, as his body didn't normally let him sleep this late, but he attributed it to the long mission and the late time he had arrived home last night. He yawned. Maybe he could catch a few more minutes of sleep...

Jack shot upright as he remembered the teenage operative that was currently sleeping in his guest room. Or had been seven hours ago.

Jack really hoped that the kid hadn't left in the middle of the night or something, because wouldn't that be just his luck?

Quietly getting out of bed, the man made his way to the guest bedroom. The door was left open exactly the way he had left it the night before, half-ajar, and what he could see of the bed from his position down the hall was that the comforter was so smooth it looked like no one had slept in it. Jack frowned, confused. He quietly crept into the room, making sure to nudge the door just enough to see inside without making it creak.

There, on the floor, was one teenager, curled into a ball and looking exhausted, even in the middle of sleeping.

Jack grinned, despite himself, as the kid let out a small snore and shifted restlessly in his sleep. His grin faded, however, when he fully took in the whole situation and realized that MacGyver had wedged himself into the smallest space he could, curled up in the corner of the room as he was. He also had taken none of the extra blankets that Jack had set out the night before, and they were resting on the edge of the bed where Jack had left them them last night-or, rather, early this morning.

Jack rubbed his eyes, a wave of tiredness washing over him. What had he gotten himself into?

He decided against waking up MacGyver and withdrew from the room; he made his way downstairs with his mind preoccupied.

* * *

Another hour, and Jack was eating breakfast-a bowl of some cereal he had sitting in his pantry, because honestly? Making something complicated sounded like _way_ too much work for only having seven hours of sleep-and reading the paper. He scoffed as he read the _Business & Finance _page, the latest news about the merger of AT&T and Time Warner Cable unsurprising him. It had been talked about for a few weeks, but the amounts of money being spent on these things never failed to shock him just a bit. How did people accrue this type of money?

Jack turned the page and started reading an article about the amount of money being made off of e-sports as he heard the upstairs toilet flushing and a pair of footsteps making their way near-silently down the stairs. Jack continued to read the paper as he saw MacGyver hover in the doorway of the kitchen.

That boy had a weird tendency to hover and look lost.

Jack didn't glance up from the paper, even as he heard the teenager shuffle awkwardly from foot to foot in the doorway. He didn't want to make the kid more uncomfortable, so he decided to go with the offhand route. "Cereal and milk are on the counter, fruit is in the bowl that is also on the counter, help yourself to whatever."

MacGyver hesitated for a moment, then moved warily into the kitchen, with a quiet, "Thank you, sir."

The younger male sat across from Jack at the table and began to eat his cereal. Jack sniffed as he turned the page. "I don't know about you, but all I'm planning to do today is rest and recover from that mission. You should probably rest too, given the way you got beat up like, less than seventy-two hours ago. Speaking of which, if any of your cuts start hurting-or any of it starts hurting too bad-you need to tell me, because if that happens we need to take you to a hospital, okay?"

MacGyver stared at Jack for a moment, seemingly took a moment to process the older man's words fully, then replied, "yes, sir," in that same quiet tone of voice that made Jack cringe internally. It was like the kid was afraid of making too much noise, and, from Jack's experience as the oldest of six children-three of which were boys-no normal kid was like that.

Jack didn't mention it, however, choosing to return to his paper and the comforting thought that he didn't need to find any more work for another year, if he really wanted to push it, because of how much he had made off of his most recent job.

Not that he would wait that long, though, because sitting around the house and doing nothing got old pretty fast.

But. It was nice to know that he didn't _have_ to find more work, because work was always more enjoyable when it was a choice instead of a necessity.

* * *

The rest of the day passed quietly, with Jack taking inventory of the things he needed to do around the house-a bird had nested in his chimney for the eighth time why did they keep nesting there, he needed to restock most of his food, there was the normal cleaning to do-while MacGyver trailed after him for a while, looking like a lost puppy. Jack put an end to the trailing rather quickly when he noticed that the blond was looking a bit pale and unsteady on his feet, and planted the teen on the couch with the TV remote and a pile of books that he thought MacGyver might like.

When Jack came back after an hour of poking at a bird's nest with a broom handle in an effort to get the nest out of the chimney (there weren't any eggs in the nest, he had checked, because he wasn't a _monster_ ) he found MacGyver sprawled out on the couch, looking entirely toovexhausted to be awake. Which was probably why he was asleep, and _wow_ Jack needed more sleep himself.

Jack had to hold back a smile at the sight, though, because, okay, that was pretty cute.

He let the younger man sleep for another hour, then woke him up for dinner, because while the kid clearly needed rest, it wouldn't do him any good to starve while he was resting. Jack shook the teen gently, preparing to have to spend at least five minutes waking him up, but to his surprise, MacGyver's eyes flew open almost immediately, and in an instant the kid was off the couch and babbling, "I'm sorry, sir, I shouldn't have fallen asleep, I'm sorry, pleasesiri'msorryi'msorry-"

Jack cut him off as the kid's words began to run together and MacGyver began to look like he was on the verge of a panic attack. "Hey, hey, it's okay, kid, I'm not mad. I was just wondering if you wanted some dinner, and then you can sleep some more?"

MacGyver blinked owlishly at the older man, his brain still jumbled from sleep and panic and not quite processing what he was being told. "Um. Yes, sir."

Jack sighed to himself, then beckoned to the younger man. "Come on, then. I made some frozen pizza that's been in my fridge for a while and I'm pretty sure it's supposed to go bad in like three days, so that's what we're eating tonight."

MacGyver trailed after the older man, following him into the kitchen. It made Jack slightly uncomfortable to have his back to someone that he didn't know and trust extremely well, but, Jack figured, if the kid was going to do something that was detrimental to Jack's health then he probably would've done it while Jack was asleep.

The pizza sat on the kitchen island at just the right temperature between burning hot and lukewarm. Jack helped himself to a couple of slices while motioning for MacGyver to do the same. He did so, taking two pieces. Jack frowned to himself. From his own memories as a teenager, MacGyver should've taken pretty much the rest of the pizza. He said nothing, though, starting on his own dinner while watching the boy opposite him wolf down his food in a way that made Jack think he looked like someone who hadn't eaten in a long time.

Jack grimaced and offered the kid more food, which he took with an expression of disbelief on his face. _Wow,_ Jack thought dryly, _this just keeps getting worse._

* * *

After dinner Jack migrated to the living room and turned on the TV. _Wheel of Fortune_ was about to come on, and Jack always had a blast trying to guess the puzzles before the contestants did. He muted the program when he realized that MacGyver was right behind him, looking lost. "What's up, kid?"

MacGyver shuffled around to the front of the couch standing before Jack, looking strangely reluctant and slightly lost. "What's my mission?"

Jack frowned, a sudden motion that he couldn't stop. "What do you mean?"

It came out harsher than he intended, but Angus looked a little relieved by the harshness, and _oh_ that made Jack's heart clench. "My mission. You let me rest for an extended period of time without training, and I have been fed non-standard food. This only happens when I have a mission. What is Penumbra sending me to do?"

Jack stood up so quickly that the kid stumbled back a step in surprise, taken aback by the sudden anger on the man's face. Jack raised his hand pinch the bridge of his nose-and felt his gut clench as the boy before him tensed.

Everything made much more sense now, as the vague suspicions Jack had had before hardened into something ugly and concrete. He looked at Angus, standing before him and obviously expecting-something. Something that Jack didn't want to think about and made him sick when he did. But he was standing there and trying to act like he wasn't scared, even as his gaze was firmly fixed on Jack's hands.

Jack slowly lowered his hands to his sides. "Angus, look at me."

The blond's eyes shot up to meet Jack's, the confusion in his eyes becoming evident. "You're not going back to Penumbra. Not ever. There isn't a mission. I brought you here because Penumbra told me that they were cutting you loose, that they didn't have a use for you anymore. This isn't some kind of test, or training simulation, or whatever you think it is."

Jack watched as thoughts flew through the blue eyes before him, and a face that looked more bewildered every second looked up at the older man. "This... Isn't a test? But-I thought-this was a _test,_ they were waiting to see how I would react, they wanted to know that I could be trusted on a mission without being distracted-"

Jack gently laid his hands on Angus' shoulders, trying to calm him down from his panic. "Hey, hey, calm down-"

Angus wrenched himself from Jack's grasp and stared at him with wide, betrayed eyes. "It's all a _lie_ , you're _lying_ , this is just to assess my reactions and see if I'll _run_ , I thought you were _different-_ "

And doesn't _that_ just make Jack feel great. Angus thinks he's with Penumbra. That this is all a test.

That Jack is working for the agency that obviously didn't think of him as a person.

Jack-gently, slowly-lays a hand on Angus' shoulder. The kid is staring at him with impossibly wide blue eyes, waiting for the truth-or what he thinks is the truth-to come out and make itself known. To shove him back into the mindset that he's just a tool in Penumbra's belt.

Jack gently draws the kid into a hug, murmuring soothingly to him. Angus stiffens at first, then slowly relaxes into the embrace, his hands coming up to clutch the back of Jack's shirt while he buries his face in Jack's broad chest. After a few minutes Jack draws back to look the kid in the eye. "This isn't Penumbra. This is- I don't know what it is, exactly, but you're welcome to stay as long as you want. No one's going to make you go on missions just to earn a bed or food. You are a human being. Got it?"

The teen just stares up at Jack for a moment, his eyes clearly proclaiming the fact that no one's told him something like this in a long time, and Jack wants to punch something. "Got it?" He repeats, needing to know that Angus understands what he's being told. The kid nods shakily after a moment.

Jack sighs knowing they have a long road before them until Angus _really_ understands, but knowing, all the same, that Jack's willing to walk every step of that road alongside this kid that he had somehow become attached to.

* * *

The two of them sit down on the old leather couch and watch TV until Angus falls asleep on Jack's shoulder. The house is filled with the hum of the dishwasher and the clock on the wall behind the couch's ticking, and Jack falls asleep with the back of his head resting on the couch and his arm around an exhausted teen.


End file.
